Various devices have been developed for use on refuse collection vehicles in order to aid in the collection of refuse from a plurality of refuse containers. Commonly, the vehicle designed to collect and store the refuse has a hopper secured to the rear of the vehicle. The purpose of the hopper is to collect the refuse from the refuse containers without the refuse spilling onto the street or ending up in other undesirable locations. Consequently, various devices have been developed for ensuring a smooth, efficient and safe transition of the refuse from the interior of a container into the hopper of the collection vehicle.
One of these devices which has been used for some time is a two-piece latch which is secured to the rear of the hopper. A pair of these two-piece latches are located on the hopper spaced from one another. Once the refuse collection vehicle is backed up to a position adjacent a refuse container, the refuse container is lifted upwardly using any of numerous devices. Each refuse container has a front pivot bar which is located inside the two-piece latches when the latches are closed. The pivot bar of the container engages a site on the vehicle to permit rotation of the container relative to the vehicle, thereby dumping the refuse from inside the container to the hopper. To ensure that the front pivot bar of the refuse container does not pull rearwardly away from the hopper, each of the two-piece latches must be closed by an operator before the refuse container is lifted. To close such a latch an operator must first lift the arm of the latch upwardly into engagement with an upper part of the two-piece latch, thus locking the two pieces together and forming a loop in which one end of the pivot bar resides. Then the operator must walk around the refuse container to the other side of the refuse container and latch together the two pieces of the other latch before the refuse container may be lifted in order to empty its contents. Thus, the use of a vehicle having such latches requires a great deal of time and effort on the part of the operator, who in the course of a day may empty hundreds of refuse containers.
In addition to preventing the refuse from spilling onto the ground, such latches are theoretically designed to prevent the pivot bars of the refuse container from moving rearwardly and creating a risk of striking the operator. However, such two-piece latches often become bent or worn from use and fail to perform satisfactorily. Additionally, the operator may accidentally kick or bump into the lower bar of the latch when the lower bar is down.
Thus, a need exists for a mechanism on the rear of a hopper which will enable a refuse container to be emptied safely and efficiently without the refuse container moving suddenly backwardly away from the hopper.
Therefore, it has been one objective of the present invention to provide a safety mechanism for the user on a hopper of a refuse collection vehicle which allows refuse containers to be emptied safely and efficiently.
It has been a further objective of the present invention to provide a hopper for use on a refuse collection vehicle having a pair of safety hooks to retain a pivot bar of a refuse container while the refuse container is being emptied.